Kaine flip flops on right-to-work

KAINE FLIP FLOPS ON RIGHT-TO-WORK: Tim Kaine told the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Wednesday that he opposed right to work, prompting AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to tweet that Kaine “reaffirmed his commitment 2 fight 4 working families & against bad laws like #righttowork.” That word “reaffirmed” suggested Kaine previously opposed right-to-work. That’s not quite right.

An AFL-CIO spokesperson told Morning Shift, “I do believe [Kaine] has been against right-to-work previously,” but couldn’t point to any specific statement. A Clinton spokesperson told Morning Shift Kaine previously opposed (and continues to oppose) passage of a federal right-to-work law. But prior to joining the Clinton campaign Kaine supported right-to-work at the state level--which is where all the action is. In 2012, when Kaine was governor of the right-to-work state of Virginia, a spokeswoman said Kaine “upheld the law as governor and will continue to support states’ rights to establish their own rules on this issue as a senator.”

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Jeremy Adler, communications director at America Rising Squared (the 501c4 division of Republican opposition research group America Rising), e-mailed Morning Shift that Kaine’s repudiation of right-to-work showed Democrats “continue to be yanked left by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and VP nominee Tim Kaine is their latest victim, flip-flopping on abortion, free trade, and now on right to work.” Actually, opposition to right-to-work has never been confined to the Democratic Party’s left flank. It’s the position every presidential ticket has taken since the states’ right-to-work option was created under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Still, it’s no use pretending Kaine didn’t flip-flop on right-to-work. He did.

LABOR SECRETARY CHATTER: The rumor mill is churning over who a President Hillary Clinton would choose for Labor Secretary. Some murmurings from the Great Mentioner:

Ed Montgomery: Deputy labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and executive director of the White House Council for Auto Communities and Workers under President Barack Obama. Now dean of Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.): Co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and member of the House Financial Services and Democratic Steering committees.

Jennifer Granholm: Former two-term Michigan governor. “Like [Tom] Perez under Obama,” POLITICO’s Edward-Isaac Dovere reports, “she’d be someone with reliable liberal credentials who could help both in developing policy and as a surrogate and a salve to the left.” http://politi.co/2aIh6P8

Who do you think will be the next Labor Secretary? If you have an inside line, let us know at mlevine@politico.com.

RAUNER SUSPENDS HOME CARE OT BAN: Facing the threat of a lawsuit from SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration on Wednesday eliminated a policy prohibiting home health care workers from collecting overtime pay, John O’Connor writes for the A.P. The state’s Human Services department enacted the policy in response to the Labor Department’s home health care rule, which requires that third-party-in-home-care providers pay home care workers minimum wage and overtime. (The rule was the subject of a lengthy legal dispute that ended in June after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.) Illinois Secretary of Human Services James Dimas said the state policy was aimed merely at preventing home care workers from working 17 or 20 hours at a stretch. But SEIU Healthcare Illinois’ Vice President Terri Harkin said at a news conference the policy “has harmed thousands of people with disabilities by threatening them with the loss of their caregiver.”

The fight is not over. Dimas said his agency will “seek permission to bar overtime hours through an administrative rule with the consent of the Illinois General Assembly,” O’Connor writes. http://bit.ly/2ayVkhu

MINNEAPOLIS MINIMUM WAGE: Unsurprisingly, a majority of Minneapolis City Council members said Wednesday that they agreed with City Attorney Susan Segel’s opinion that a proposed city charter amendment to raise Minneapolis’s minimum wage to $15 was ineligible for the November ballot. (Segel last week called the proposal “an ordinance disguised as a [city] charter amendment.” ) The City Council is expected to vote it down Friday.

But that isn’t the end of it. On Wednesday the City Council directed city staff to develop its own minimum wage ordinance. Under the directive, city officials would “begin the process of exploring a citywide minimum wage hike with a proposed committee schedule that would start in the spring of 2017,” reports Minnesota Public Radio’s Brandt Williams. http://bit.ly/2amH600

FAREWELL TO THE TAJ: The Trump Taj Mahal, which Carl Icahn has owned since it emerged from bankruptcy in February, will close after Labor Day. The announcement comes as nearly 1,000 hospitality workers remain on strike over health and retirement benefits and no pay raises. The workers have been on strike since July 1, making this the longest labor strike in Atlantic City history, according to the A.P. POLITICO’s Tyler Pager reports that 3,000 workers will lose their job when the casino closes.

Tropicana Entertainment CEO and President Tony Rodio said in a statement that the Taj is “losing millions a month,” and that with the addition of the strike, there’s “no path to profitability.”

“How petty,” was the response from UNITE HERE Local 54 president Bob McDevitt. McDevitt said Ichan wants to “burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes.” McDevitt also took a sideswipe at Trump, who opened the Taj in 1990 after wresting the project from Merv Griffin in 1988. “If [Icahn] is the guy Donald Trump wants to be Treasury secretary,” McDevitt said, “then this country is doomed.” His full statement is here: http://bit.ly/2aCE3BQ Pager’s story is here: http://politi.co/2aj2t6w

WHAT DID FOX KNOW, AND WHEN?: Fox news investigators looking into accusations of sexual harassment against former chairman Roger Ailes are probing whether other executives knew about Ailes’ behavior and failed to act, the New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and Ben Protess report. Although the investigation does not address Fox News’ broader workplace culture, investigators are beginning to ask the (somewhat obvious) question of whether other Fox employees “effectively enabled” Ailes’ alleged harassment of female employees. According to a fairly lurid report last week by New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, Ailes’ behavior was much more conspicuous (and predatory) than previously supposed. (Through his attorney, Susan Estrich, Ailes denied the accuracy of Sherman’s account.) Rutenberg and Protess write that a person briefed on the investigation said that as of last week, nearly 20 women reported inappropriate behavior by Ailes. http://nyti.ms/2aDbILk

NJ SENATE PRESIDENT CALLS FOR UNION INVESTIGATION: The fight over New Jersey public pensions is getting ugly. New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney called for state and federal investigations into the Fraternal Order of Police after its president, Bob Fox, left a voicemail threatening to withhold campaign contributions to state senators until they approved a pension referendum for the November ballot. The referendum would require the state to boost contributions to its public pension fund. The New Jersey Education Association also threatened to withhold campaign contributions until lawmakers approved the referendum.

At a news conference Wednesday, Sweeney said the unions’ actions may violate state and federal bribery laws. “Using political and financial threats to coerce public officials is an assault on the integrity of the legislative process and honest government,” Sweeney said. The state Senate has until Monday to make a final decision on the referendum. More here from Samantha Marcus of NJ.com: http://bit.ly/2aRBXlJ

LAW360’S MANAGEMENT OBJECTS TO UNION: The Huffington Post’s Dave Jamieson reports that managers at Law360 are resisting journalists’ efforts to organize a union there, and are retaining Jackson Lewis, a well-known management-side law firm that the publication often writes about favorably. (For instance, Law360 listed Jackson Lewis as one of the “most charitable law firms” and “mightiest employment practice groups.”)

Reporters at Law360 announced last month their intention to affiliate with the NewsGuild of New York, and said management needed to address various workplace problems, including pressure to “write uncritical articles about big law firms and their partners.” If Law360 votes in the union, it will join several other recently-organized digital news outlets, including Gawker, Salon, Vice, and The Huffington Post. Unlike management at those other outlets, though, Law360’s managers strongly oppose unionization. “Many employees have already been urged to attend what are commonly called captive audience meetings,” Jamieson writes. “These are meetings in which consultants deliver an anti-union message to employees in the hopes of eroding enough union support among the workforce that the union loses an election.”

The union election will take place later this month, with roughly 130 employees in New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles eligible to vote. First, though, employees will have to sit through “as many as four” anti-union meetings with consultants, Law 360’s managers told employees. http://huff.to/2aUWTFE

About The Author : Marianne LeVine

Marianne LeVine is a reporter at POLITICO who covers lobbying and co- authors POLITICO Influence. Prior to her stint on the lobbying beat, Marianne covered labor policy for POLITICO Pro, writing about regulations related to overtime pay, retirement advice and occupational health and safety. Her reporting in 2016 about domestic abuse allegations against President Donald Trump's first nominee for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, was a key part of the debate surrounding his nomination, which he ultimately withdrew. Prior to working at POLITICO, Marianne was an intern in the Los Angeles Times' Washington, D.C. bureau.

She graduated from Stanford undergrad in 2013, with degrees in International Relations and French and completed Stanford's Graduate Program in Journalism in 2014.